"E.Voiskunsky, I.Lukodyanov. The Crew Of The Mekong (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Lieutenant Fedor Matveyev of the Russian Navy had gone through the same
school as many another young nobleman who, by the will of Peter the Great,
was torn away from his placid rural life and cast into the maelstrom of
those turbulent times.
The School of Navigation in Moscow, instruction in carpentry, the wheel
wright's craft and shipbuilding in Holland, the Louis Quatorze Nautical
School in Marseilles, artillery training in Paris, and round-the-clock work
in the shipyards of the new, cold city of St. Petersburg had turned the
illiterate village bumpkin, pigeon fancier and church singer into a smart
naval officer fluent in foreign languages and inured to the deprivations of
a wanderer's life.
The indomitable will of Russia's extraordinary tsar had scattered these
young men of a new mould far and wide.
Fedor Matveyev was not the least surprised when he received orders to
join a hydrographic expedition on the Caspian Sea. He and young men like him
had no time to be surprised-they were too busy surprising others.
When Fedor reached the Caspian town of Astrakhan his ears were still
ringing with the roar of the battles on the Baltic Sea, and his right
shoulder ached from a wound made by a Swedish falcon bullet.
He was struck by the quietness here. In contrast to the steel-grey
waters and overcast skies of the Baltic, the Caspian Sea was green; it had
yellow sandy beaches, a dazzling blue sky and a merciless southern sun.
The tsar's instructions ordered the expedition, which was under the
command of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky, "to search assiduously for harbours
and rivers where ships might be put in and scout-boats find a haven during
storms; to establish the location of sandbars and underwater reefs, and
enter all these and other things on maps; to cross the sea and note the
location of islands and shoals; to put the width of the sea on the map".
Fedor Matveyev enthusiastically set about mapping the unfamiliar sea.
There was an ancient mystery about those uninhabited, windswept shores.
Fedor knew that beyond the sun-baked yellow sands lay fabulous India.
He was unaware, as yet, that Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's expedition
had another mission, a secret one.
Finding the shortest trade route to India had long been one of Peter
the Great's ambitions. He had heard much about that country's wonders and
unbelievable wealth.
Indian goods reached Europe through Persian and Arab merchants.
European goods flowed to India through the same hands. Yet, reflected Peter,
Nature herself had decreed that Russia should be a middleman in the commerce
between Europe and Asia.
On the route to India lay Khiva and Bukhara, troubled lands whose
rulers were constantly engaged in strife. In the year 1700 Shah Niaz, Khan
of Khiva, had expressed a desire to become a subject of the Russian tsar,
hoping with Peter's help to bolster up his shaky throne. But then new rulers
succeeded one another so rapidly in Khiva that it was impossible to keep
track of them.
Everything was a mystery in that sun-scorched land.
For instance, old maps showed the Amu Darya flowing into the Caspian
Sea. Herodotus, the Greek historian, and Arab historians also, said the Amu
Darya flowed into the Caspian. Yet it was rumoured that the fickle river had